Ex-Michigan State athlete claims in lawsuit that Larry Nassar drugged and raped her in 1992

MSU Board of Trustees meet after President Lou Anna Simon resigns to announce an interim president.
Robert Killips | Lansing State Journal

FILE - In this Jan. 24, 2018 file photo, Larry Nassar sits during his sentencing hearing in Lansing, Mich. Michigan State can’t win enough football games this season to change the ugliness of the school’s recent past. The Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal and lingering questions about the school’s football and basketball programs have put the university under a bad spotlight. This year’s football team is hoping that players have learned the right lessons. The players remind each other to make good choices and avoid stupid behavior. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)(Photo: The Associated Press)

GRAND RAPIDS - A woman says in a recently filed lawsuit that Larry Nassar drugged and raped her during a medical appointment in 1992, when she was a Michigan State University field hockey player.

Erika Davis told her coach what happened, including that the assault was videotaped, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Grand Rapids and includes her name. Her coach, Martha Ludwig, confronted Nassar about what happened and demanded and received a copy of the recording, according to the lawsuit.

George Perles, who resigned as athletic director in 1992 and is a current Michigan State trustee, later intervened and the complaint was dropped, according to the lawsuit. Perles forced Ludwig to return the video, resign and sign a non-disclosure agreement, according to the lawsuit.

Davis says in the lawsuit that she became pregnant, that Nassar is the only person who could have been the father and that she later had a miscarriage.

MSU spokeswoman Emily Guerrant released a statement on the lawsuit.

“We are deeply sorry for the abuses Larry Nassar has committed and for the trauma experienced by all sexual assault survivors," she said. "Sexual abuse, assault and relationship violence are not tolerated in our campus community.

"While the protocols and procedures mentioned in this lawsuit do not reflect how sexual assault claims are handled at MSU, we are taking the allegations very seriously and looking into the situation."

In October 1992, Davis and two friends went to the MSU Police Department to file a report, according to the lawsuit.

"The police told them that since she was an athlete, she had to report it to the athletic department," her attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. "The detective explicitly told them that he was powerless to investigate anything that takes place to the athletic department and to go to the athletic department.

"Plaintiff Erika explained that the athletic department already dismissed it and the Sergeant responded that George Perles is a 'powerful man,' and she should just drop it."

Davis later had her field hockey scholarship taken away from her, according to the lawsuit.

Messages were left seeking comment from Perles and Davis' attorneys.

Current MSU Police Chief Jim Dunlap, who said he didn't know about the lawsuit or whether the department ever received a report, said it was "nonsense" that the department would have declined to investigate because Perles or the athletic department was involved.

"It just doesn’t happen," he said. "We just don't do things that way."

Dunlap was not the police chief in 1992.

The MSU Police Department led the criminal investigation of Nassar in 2014 and 2016. The 2014 investigation ended when Ingham County prosecutors declined to issue charges. The 2016 investigation ended with state and federal convictions and hundreds of women and girls reporting that Nassar had abused them.

Nassar was a student in MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1992, although in 1986 he began working as an athletic trainer with USA Gymnastics. MSU hired him in 1997, following his work with the U.S. women's gymnastics team at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

MSU fired him in September 2016, amid an increasing number of sexual assault reports dating back years.